Sweet Valentine's Promotion

So the newest promotion from Stampin' Up! is -

Purchase either the Sweetheart stamp set or the Full Heart Punch and recieve a free pack of  Heart Treat Cups for FREE!!!! Just the thing to get you ready for Valentine's Day...

Shoot me an email if you're interested in purchasing either of these items - adlewiess@yahoo.com.au or lisajguy@hotmail.com .

Can't wait to hear from you :)

Smiles

Adele xxx

Christmas Crafts

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful wonderful holiday season and are feeling refreshed and eager to bring on the New Year. Ystyn and I have been sick this past week so we're bringing in the New Year in bed :( but can't wait to be healthy and get on with the program! Being sick sucks!

So - crafting? Well - I have to admit I got totally psycho trying to get my Christmas gifts and cards done and handed out on time. Unfortunatley in all the rush I didn't get any photo's!!!!!! Oh no!!!! Actually, I got these few of the wrapping I did for Banana Bread that I gave to some of our friends.

I made up a variation of these cards to give out along with them so I made tags to match. I really like the peacefulness of these cards - I really enjoyed making them. I used doileys on the packaging - I thought they tied in nicely with the embossed panels on the tags and cards.

I did make 2 other kinds of Christmas cards but didn't take photo's of them - but they were inspired by this card by Renee Van Stralen and this card by Teneale. Obvioulsy mine are luke warm in comparison with these two stunners but a girl can try right! :)

So, I did mangage to get out some cards and some gifts but have realised next year I HAVE to HAVE to be better prepared! hehehhe. Looking at it from here Christmas doesn't seem that far away...:)

Anyway, thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you've all had a great week and can't wait to get back into blogland chatting again! Can't wait to start crafting either - my table is STILL a mess from the Christmas rush - I just DON"T want to clean it! hehehehhe

Smiles

Adele xxx

Who Won???

Thanks everyone for leaving comments and emailing me your answers for the giveaway and leaving comments about which cards you liked best. Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and will get to have a bit of a rest before getting back to 'life'.

The winner of the Blog Candy is................... Abby!! I have your address Abby, so some time this week I will mail off your parcel to you. I hope you have fun and get to try some new things. Please let me know what you make!

I'm sure Adele and I will be getting together to try some new things...maybe in a week or two! This week I have to cover some 2011 Diaries so maybe I will post those later on.

Love,

Lisa xx

Finally....Christmas Cards!

So this is a large posting of Christmas cards but I decided to just put them all together as this will be my last post before Christmas. Sorry for the terrible pictures but I took them at night and the lighting was bad!! 

I actually had loads of fun making these cards and I was determined to use all my Christmas sets. I didn't realize until after I finished making the cards and layed them all out...but there is a bit of a colour theme happening.

Anyway, in true Lisa fashion....I'm posting pictures without much explanation about what I have used (cos it takes soooo long!). I figure you all know anyway!

Lastly...I have decided to give away a little Blog Candy as I haven't done that yet! So if you can tell me what Christmas sentiment I have used the most and what set it comes from (leave me a message), you will go into the draw to win a special pack which I will post to you after Christmas. Btw, you can let me know which card you like the best too as it's always nice to hear what others think!

The pack contains: Corner Rounder Punch (0.5cm), Neutrals Designer Buttons, Anywhere Glue Stick, Paper Daisies Pack, Stampin' Emboss Powder in White and a packet of Confetti White A4 Card Stock.

You have until the end of this week, Sunday 26th December to enter and then I will draw a winner and announce it on Monday 27th December.

Hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and can't wait to try some new things in the New Year!

Love,

Lisa xxx

Notebooks and Gingerbread

I always make presents for all of (my daughter) Anisa's teachers and this year I went with covered notebooks and chocolates for some and gingerbread houses for the others. I know you have seen my notebooks before...so sorry for being repetitive! I have made gingerbread houses for the last 17 years...it is a family tradition at Christmastime. They are fun, yummy and adorable to look at and I usually make anywhere between 20 and 60 each year. I have also taught many, many classes and my daughter always has her friends over to make them. So this year I added some very cute homemade tags to finish them off. I love this simple and easy stamp set (Gifted).
Next post will be my Christmas Cards....as soon as I take photos of them!!

Lisa xxx

I'm Baaa-ack!!

You may have noticed that I have been waaaaay out of the crafting picture of late....and well that's because I have been! Inconveniently, LIFE took over and I was just too busy to attempt anything. I was helping my daughter get through exams, assignments and a myriad of activities. Then it was time for her to graduate and there was 101 awards nights, speech nights, church services, valedictory service and valedictory dinner. While this was going on I had my sister and her family stay with me while I put on my grandparents combined 90th birthday party! Thankfully my daughter has graduated, she's returned from schoolies at Great Keppel Island, my relatives are back in Sydney and I can finally get down to crafting!!!
This post is of my only attempt to craft, and that was out of necessity. My daughter volunteered me to make giant cards for all five year 12 music teachers. I made these all in one night and they are an A4 sheet of card stock folded in half...and because all the year 12's had to write in them I had to add an insert in the middle of each card.
I think I did pretty well under pressure! Anyway, I have since got back into full swing and have lots more photos to show you...but I will spread out my posts over the next week.

Good to be back!!!

Lisa xxxx

Advent Calendar Activities

If you're looking for some Christmas activites to use on your own Advent Calendar than check out this post - this blog has AMAZING ideas and I LOVED browsing through many of them.

I've used most of the activities suggested in this post and have added a few of our own - yesterday we made Christmas Jelly (just red and green jelly with freddo frogs in it) - I'm sure as the years go by I'll be better at making up the activities. And don't forget - it is an advent calendar so treats are essential!!! hehehehe. I forgot that and was trying to come up with 25 different acitivies, but then I remembered and have about 5 'treat' days - I have a tupperware box of treats ready for when those days come up.

 I also included things that we already do like seeing Christmas lights or reading the Christmas story in the scriptures on Christmas Eve, or like tonight - putting up our Christmas Tree. I was in a real rush so the activites aren't terribly inventive. Next year (ha ha) I will be much more prepared!!! hehehehe

I also used dotto (repositional adhesive) to adhere my activities to the back - I figured that way I could remove them and start over again next year if I wanted rather then having to make a whole new set of tags. Who knows - I might have a different idea for an advent calendar next year! :)

Thanks for stopping by

Smiles

Adele xxx

Advent Calendar

My 5 year old has been driving me nuts with arguments about how close/far Christmas is. He's adamant its only 3 days away (not sure if he means 3 weeks or what) - but anyway - its driving me nuts!!!! SO - I decided I HAD to have an Advent Calendar so we could actually count down the days till Christmas.

So here's what I came up with...

I love it! Probably (!!!!) not very kid friendly but it makes me happy! :)

This is just a big cork pinboard I bought from the Reject Shop for $12. I had the paint at home as well as all the other supplies. I made up 25 tags with 4 different designs and printed out different activities for us to do each day of Christmas. I'm thinking once we've done each day I'll just turn the tag around and re-pin it???

Anyway - the tags are nothing fancy and I've re-used some designs from my last couple of posts, but I'm really happy with the effect. A cost effective (if not time-effective) advent calendar - now - bring on Christmas!!! :)

Smiles

Adele xxx

Another Post...

I thought I'd help my mum out and create some thank you cards for her and dad to hand out to all the thoughtful, loving, helpful people who lent a hand during the week of Nana's funeral. We're blessed to belong to an amazing and caring church who provided meals for mum and dad while they had family staying with them, and provided all the food for the day of the funeral so my parents and Aunty and Uncle could concentrate on family and remembering Nana. So - there are lots of thank you's to be said.

I loved this card of Teneale's from the moment I laid eyes on it and knew that I could make it work as a simple thank you card, so here's my take on it...

My photography skills don't do the card justice - the colours look all a little weird here, but in real life its just lovely and simple and clean and pure. I love them and hope they convey a little of the true gratitude we feel for the people who touch our lives so much for the good.



Thanks for stopping by,

Smiles and hugs,

Adele xxx

Inkspiration Sketch Challenge #49 and Just Add Ink Colour Challenge #44



So sooooo annoyed at myself!!!! I've been struggling to upload photo's to my blog all day and have been trying on this blog and also my family blog and in the end gave it up in frustration! Have come back to it now to realise that I actually can upload so just started doing my thing without realising which blog I was on only to discover I have loaded all my craft stuff onto the family blog and have no idea how to get it over here without retyping the whole damn thing!!!!

So here I am retyping the whole damn thing!!!! :)

I'm going to keep it brief! hehehehe

Inkspiration and Just Add Ink Challenges  - combined - see below...

And here is my card...

The Sketch is flipped but otherwise fairly true to form. The colours however I had to do a little bit of 'making do'??? I don't actually own any Wild Wasabi or River Rock Cardstock yet - however - I was saved by the fact that I do own the inks (my very first set of inks when they were In Colours in 2007/2008). I was very impressed that they were still inky!!! So - I've used Chocolate Chip and Crumb Cake as well as Very Vanilla and used Wild Wasabi to colour in my leaves, and River Rock with highlights of Blushing Bride to colour in my flowers. All in all a very vintagey looking card...





A close up of those flowers - I love these flowers...

Ok - so I can't be bothered writing out all my supplied AGAIN so, if you have any questions just shoot me a line! :) :) :)

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Smiles

Adele xxx

Presents!

I needed to make a present for a very special someone during the week and this is what I came up with...

A Box of Roses...

This is the box - a paper mache box I purhcased and decorated the front of - I was inspired by the gorgeous little box on one of the first pages of the current catalogue - I love how this turned out...

And then once you open the lid this is what you see - a first layer of tiny little flowers all pre-made, ready to go...

Then a second layer which has stacks of hand cut leaves to go with what was in the bottom of the box...

Which was stacks of these roses! My favourite flowers of the moment - the same ones that I made to use on this card here. I didn't attach the leaves myself because as you can see from my original card sometimes a flower doesn't need leaves to look gorgeous! :). So I just had them all ready to go should a particular flower be in need of some greenage...

A close up of the first 'drawer' - just a shallow box with a ribbon handle so it can be pulled in and out of the box. I'm not very clever when it comes to designing things and this was the best I could come up by way of getting layers into my box - hopefully its not too annoying to access the other contents?

A close up of some of the flowers - these are all made using the Circles #2 Die cut from the Big Shot - just run out a whole heap of coloured circles, spritz them with water and scrunch, leave to dry a little, then assemble. Simple but effective - I think anyway? :)

The card I made to go with it all. Its so easy to make things when you've got a theme going. Not sure if its over-kill or not, but I made the card to match the tag to match the box? All the same but different?? Is that what you do when doing packaging and gifts?

And a close up of the tag. I loved this tag - so cute and so easy to make - and re-usable! I only wrote in the card so this tag can be used again and again. Cant wait to get started on some Christmas tags!!!

So there you have it - a Box of Roses for a Special Someone! Lots of love went into this box - I hope that shows through...

Thanks for stopping by,

Don't forget our last class of the year is this Saturday night - see here for further details!

Smiles

Adele xxx

Stamps: Word Play, Vintage Vogue

CS: Crumb Cake, Assorted Current Colours( for small flowers), Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Pear Pizzaz,

Ink: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede

Other: Big Shot, Circles #2 Die, Three Blossom Punch, Two Way Bird Punch, Dimensionals, Vintage Brads, Circle Ice Brads, Assorted rhinestone gems from personal stash, Riding Hood Red Striped Grosgrain Ribbon, Scallop Trim Punch 

Blog Candy

I'm so sorry - I know I missed posting the winner of my blog candy question (found in this post here) - everything kind of slipped my mind with all the drama of the past week...

So...I've decided to send a little blog candy to the three participants who answered the question correctly - Sarah-Jane, Sandra and Chook!!!! So if each of you would like to email me (adlewiess@yahoo.com.au) with your address details I'll try and get something into the post by the end of the week!!! :)

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments - you guys are the best! xxx xxx xxx

Smiles

Adele xxx

Christmas Blocks Class

Hello friends!!!! Its been a while I know and I've missed blogging during the past week - my grandmother passed away last week so it was a time for family and togetherness and I didn't actually get around to much crafting. My sister and her 5 kids drove all the way from Wollongong to stay with me and it was so nice having time with her and all the cousin's together. The house is oddly quiet now (:)). Life can be so good and so sad all at once can't it...

But on with this weeks class - yes, its this Saturday and its our last class for the year!!!! We'll be doing Christmas Blocks -

So details...

Saturday 27th November (this Saturday)

7.30pm start

$20 for 3 blocks and all accessories 

If 'JOY' isn't what you'd like to put on your blocks thats totally fine - you can purchase additional blocks and letters for $3.50 per block - you just need to let me know when you RSVP how many blocks you require.

It will be lots of fun - these blocks are close to my favouritest things ever to make and I can't wait to share them with you!

RSVP by emailing adlewiess@yahoo.com.au and I will provide bank details for you to pay your money into. This should be a fairly popular class so secure your seat quick! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Hope to see you soon!

Smiles

Adele xxx

Inkspirations Sketch Challenge #47 and BLOG CANDY

So as you can see I had a REALLY fun night last night - I made 2 cards which did mean I stayed up later than I should have but I enjoyed myself none the less!!! hehehe

This is the sketch for the Inkspiration Challenge...

And this is my card...



As you can see (I hope you can!!!!) I've flipped the sketch to suit my card, but I did try very hard to keep most of the components of the sketch present.

Once again I've used the lovely Dasher - he is just adorable I think, and I love to see his antlers all glittery! I've also embossed on vellum for the very first time and really like the effect. You might not be able to pick it up in the photo's but I have used the snowflake images from Snow Swirled to stamp on the background card behind the images - they're just not showing up to well?

All in all a very wintery Christmas card - so not an Australian christmas but gives the illusion of a white one!

Now - can you see that gorgeous little snowflake that creates my focal point just below Dasher??? If anyone can tell me where I've got it from I will send them a little BLOG CANDY!!!! Just leave a comment on this post - I will write the names of all correct answers and do a little draw next Wednesday! Happy guessing!!! :) :) :)

Thanks so much - you guys are AWESOME!!!

Lots and lots of smiles

Adele xxx

Stamps: Dasher, Snow Swirled, Best Yet
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Whisper White, Crumb Cake
Ink: Crumb Cake, Whisper White Craft
Other: Scallop Trim Edge, Vellum, Whisper White Taffeta Ribbon, White Embossing Powder, Big Shot, Polka Dots Embossing Folder, Dazzling Diamonds, Two Way Glue Pen